A Blog about all things Star Trek, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Outlander and a lot more sci-fi

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Comic-Con 2010: Press Rooms

Since I figured that all my news would be old news by the time I get to post something about Comic-Con, I decided to make some posts about my experiences in the press rooms, so that you get a bit of an insider's view as to what they are, how they work.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend four press rooms during this incredibly busy and crazy convention (far more crazier than I thought believe me. You think you know what you're getting yourself into when you've never gone to Comic-Con before but believe me, you do not).
The press rooms I covered were those for BBC America's Being Human, NBC's Chuck, Fox's Fringe, and the WB's Supernatural - in that order. I will talk a bit about each press rooms in separate posts later so keep your eyes peeled for those.

A press room is a hectic experience, where every journalist, blogger, and TV crew is ushered in to a specially designated room/area set up for that purpose. The room I was in for three of those press rooms was situated in the area of Ballroom 20 - where Chuck, Fringe and Supernatural were holding their panels.

All of the actors,writers, and others who attend the panel, attend the press rooms. If you're lucky, you may get to have each one sit with you and answer your questions for perhaps 5 minutes. If you're not, you may get only a handful of people (which happened in one of the press rooms).

Not let me go back to the actors.

They are ushered to each tables (round tables where the written press sits) by a "handler." Sometimes, people will be ushered at your table, and unless you know the show's complete list of who's who on it (and I'm not talking actors here), you won't even have a clue at first who you're actually talking to (which sadly happened to me)!

Most of the time, the actors will take more time at the press line, where they are being interviewed by the TV crews. And this is why sometimes the written press doesn't get to have much time with them afterward (I'm thinking I should do my own show - with my french accent should be interesting).

As for the interview process, it's each one for themselves. Kidding. Though the process is basically civilized - I had no eye scratching incident taking place in mine - sometimes there are always those that seem to take all the place and ask all the questions but you also have those who are just happy to listen in. But everyone is respectful.

Then the actors, writers, showrunners are just switched tables after a few minutes and the process begins again. When the time is up, all the actors/writers/showrunners are ushered out of the room and the journalists generally have to leave if they are not scheduled for the next press room.

So this, in a nutshell, is what happens in a press room. Stay tuned for more. Coming up soon, the Being Human Press Room.